Jacob Wrestles with Christ Be with me now in thy faithful spirit, holy and blessed Patriarch Jacob, to combat the poisonous hissings of the serpent of unbelief. Prevail once more in thy wrestling with the Man, and, being the stronger, once more entreat His blessing. Why pray for what thou mightest demand from thy weaker Opponent? Thy strong arm has vanquished Him Whose blessing thou prayest. Thy bodily victory is […]
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Hilary of Poitiers: On the Trinity
“I Am that I Am, and again, He that is hath sent me unto you” I confess that I was amazed to find in them an indication concerning God so exact that it expressed in the terms best adapted to human understanding an unattainable insight into the mystery of the Divine nature. For no property of God which the mind can grasp is more characteristic of Him than existence, since […]
Read moreHilary of Poitiers: The Faith of the Easterns
“The Lord created Me for a beginning of His ways for His works” By speaking of creation [Wisdom] implies that the nature of the Father is changeless, and she also shews that the substance of her nature begotten of God the Father is genuine and real. And so her words about creation and generation have explained the perfection of her birth: the former that the Father is changeless, the latter […]
Read moreAthanasius: The Son is Coessential with the Father
Coessential vs. Like-in-Essence Like is not predicated of essence, but of habits, and qualities; for in the case of essences we speak, not of likeness, but of identity. Man, for instance, is said to be like man, not in essence, but according to habit and character; for in essence men are of one nature … Therefore, in speaking of Like according to essence, we mean like by participation; (for Likeness […]
Read moreAthanasius: Against the Arians III
Oneness of the Father and the Son “that they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me.” (John 17:21) If, for instance, it were possible for us to become as the Son in the Father, the words ought to run, ‘that they may be one in […]
Read moreAthanasius: Against the Arians II
Jesus became Lord of All by Grace For God is always, and one and the same; but men have come to be afterwards through the Word, when the Father Himself willed it; and God is invisible and inaccessible to originated things, and especially to men upon earth. When then men in infirmity invoke Him, when in persecution they ask help, when under injuries they pray, then the Invisible, being a […]
Read moreAthanasius: Against the Arians
Arian argument: “If there never was, when the Son was not, but He is eternal, and coexists with the Father, you call Him no more the Father’s Son, but brother” Answer: For the Father and the Son were not generated from some pre-existing origin, that we may account Them brothers, but the Father is the Origin of the Son and begat Him; and the Father is Father, and not born […]
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